Hold fast to your dreams

Luxembourg

Before I moved to Luxembourg I told my brother I’m gonna go for a bike tour around Luxembourg. Well, he didn’t take me quite seriously, nor did I believe in what I was saying. This weekend I did go for a bike tour and it was an adventurous bike tour. It was a long weekend, Monday was a day off work due to a public holiday (Assumption of Mary). So, I planned the whole trip ahead. Maria, Mirka (Finnish girls) and me went to Wiltz, city very close to Belgium border. Initial plan was to rent the bikes in Wiltz and cycle all the way to Esch sur Sure. I heard that the area around Esch is really beautiful, with lots of lakes where people even go for a swim. Due to the cold weather, I skipped the swimming part but was still very enthusiastic about visiting the area.

Well, right from the start things didn’t go as planned. Girls working in the tourist office in Wiltz didn’t seem to know a lot about the area, nor could they give us advice on how to reach Esch by bikes. We were all a bit grumpy by the time we left the tourist office & it wasn’t the perfect start of the journey. We had the bikes but had no idea where to go with them. So we started cycling around the area hoping to find one of many cycling paths…and it turned out to be a real challenge. Escaping the city wasn’t as easy as we taught it might be, so we went on cycling, on and on and on again and were failing on and on and on again to find the road that would lead us outside of the city. It took us half an hour to find one of numerous cycling paths, after getting lost a number of times…smile was back on our faces again!!:)

The cycling path was just perfect and the scenery was perfect. As it turned out, we were heading towards the Belgium border without realizing it.

We made the first stop after 10km…all three of us had just one thing on our mind – beer! My cycling partners were the perfect companions for the cycling trip. We were all equally into cycling and discovering the area as we were into tasting different lagers!:)

Our first stop and our first lager…

From Winseler (1st stop) we proceeded towards Belgium (Bastogne)…10km more ahead of us. The scenery was the same and the area was very flat, only occasional rain showers slowed us down and gave opportunity to Maria to have a quick fag. Half an hour later we were in Belgium. Wow, no customs, no passport control, not even a sign saying ‘Belgium’..’welcome to Belgium’, just a few metal blue bars that, as we later realised, signaled Belgium border!:)

Bastogne is a small city, 10km away from the border. We needed to take the bikes back by 18h so had just cca 40min to explore the city. We had another beer and a big portion of fries and were already on the way back to Luxembourg.

This time we didn’t make any beer-breaks. It was raining really heavily and we were all soaking wet. I was so proud of all of us for not moaning and complaining. We continued cycling as stubbornly and persistently as at the beginning of the tour. We reached Wiltz in no time, with our sneakers filled with water, our hair dripping wet with water..I realised that the rain coat I had bought earlier that week was actually NOT water proof, as my skin was all wet in spite of having rain coat on.

Warm shower, changing into warm clothes did the trick..we were ready to go and search for a place to eat out. Street ad saying ‘Sarajevo’ instantly draw my attention. As it turned out, owner comes from Zenica and he makes all sorts of Bosnian specialties: cevapcici, pljeskavica, burek..

Without thinking I ordered a big portion of cevapcici(grilled minced meat) in a greasy bread roll, served with onions and ajvar as side dishes. Maria and Mirka loved it…I loved it too, of course!:)

It was a perfect closure to our beer-biking tour. what a great day!

Oh, we cycled for 45km that day!!..and needless to say, after cycling, beer tasting and having Bosnian dish for dinner, we slept like three logs! haha:)

..and at the end of such an eventful day we still had enough energy left to engage in a game of chess!:)

Hi everybody, I still haven’t posted pics from Vianden. We went to Vianden last weekend. I wasn’t sure until I woke up on Saturday morning whether I’m gonna join the rest of the group or not..anyways when I woke up, I really felt like travelling. I always think..’well, it would be nice to stay in Lux city for a change and just do a bit of exploring here also..’,,,and then the weekend comes and I always join the getaway-from-Lux trip.

I really loved Vianden. It’s a really small city (like all of the cities in Lux)..even for Lux standards and city dimensions-it is rather small. there was a medieval weekend being held there, so Pablo suggested it would be good to go & visit.

so here are some pics, medieval pics:))

it’s never boring to go around Lux, if you are passionate about the food and you like beer and chocolate, well, this place is a paradise (especially for the latter two). it is true though that I had the worst cheese cake, ever, in Vianden too..but as far as the beverage goes (beer), it was as good as always! 🙂